Google has begun including advertisements as e-mail messages in some Gmail users' inboxes, a new step in the company's effort to turn its free services into revenue sources.

The company has shown ads alongside Gmail messages for years, but these ads appear as messages that can be opened like e-mails and forwarded to others, according to Gmail users who started seeing them last week.

The company has shown ads alongside Gmail messages for years, but these ads appear as messages that can be opened like e-mails and forwarded to others, according to Gmail users who started seeing them last week.

Just another reason why I only use webmail accounts to register for forums and such, never look at them otherwise.. even bigger spam magnet now. Although I am thankful for them, they do help keep my real mail account spam free.

I hope this only applies when you have the tabs enabled (I don't), see how that tab is labeled "Promotions"? But bad move Google, there are enough people who don't understand the basics of email already!

I hope this only applies when you have the tabs enabled (I don't), see how that tab is labeled "Promotions"? But bad move Google, there are enough people who don't understand the basics of email already!

Was curious about that too, I don't really use GMail aside from the occasional forum signup but I did disable the promotions and social tab, got it back to the older layout.. wonder if it'll hide them or just show these ads in the main mail window.

I hope this only applies when you have the tabs enabled (I don't), see how that tab is labeled "Promotions"? But bad move Google, there are enough people who don't understand the basics of email already!

I checked mine and while I don't have direct ads, all the people who keep sending me advertising spam that I haven't blocked have been filtered to there.

Not seeing a problem unless people don't know how to tell a difference...

In which case, tehy would have clicked on it whether there was multiple tabs or not.